Nice win for Eterno. Centvrion still seems to be owed a shot, but Eterno vs Centviron would still be good.

CIMA’s only in for one night, but the slow Dragon Gate trainee invasion is expanding one more. Yuta Tanaka was supposed to debut today in Nagyoa, but Eita invited him to come to Mexico to train with him and Tomahawk instead. Tanaka said yes and no-showed his debut, which means he has all the makings of a great luchador. I hope they call him Yuta, too many Tanakas. DG is clearly up to something by sending keeping these three guys together in Mexico, but IWRG-wise, it means they have enough guys to challenge for trios titles now! In other Eita activity, there’s a Eita, Dowki & Hanaoka promo for the Perros 04/21 Arena Lopez Mateos show.

The Gladiatores has an interview with Toscano from this show, talking about his new trio.

Tonight’s Arena Mexico show has Shocker, Sombra and Marco Mister Indestructible Corleone vs Mr. Aguila, Dragon Rojo and Rey Escorpion to continue the Shocker/Aguila feud. If they’re doing the hair match in two weeks, which is my guess and was Dr. Lucha’s guess last night, then they should make it offical tonight.

The big event on the show is the start of the Gran Alternativa tournament. Block A is tonight, and it seems like the most open tournament in a while. Maximo & Robin and Mephisto & Akuma look unlikely to win, but you can make reasonable cases for everyone other team. Atlantis & Hombre Bala Jr., Ultimo Guerrero & Guerrero Negro Jr., Averno & Taurus and Disturbio & Volador all have reasonable combinations, but also might get passed over because CMLL likes to spread out the big wins. If CMLL is looking to give a win to someone who hasn’t gotten a lot of Mexico City showcases of late, both La Mascara & Stigma and Mascara Dorada & Oro Jr. fit that bill. Dorado & Oro Jr. is my favorite team, but I don’t have a good feel about who’s actually going to win this. Rob makes the case for La Mascara & Stigma. Los Colisenos says Guerrero Negro Jr. & Ultimo Guerrero is the favorite.

The LA Times interviews Starlight Runner about their role in the FactoryMade/AAA deal. The most interesting to me is they’re first putting together an AAA show bible, with info on the AAA characters and storylines. It’s the kind of thing you might find on a TV show or on some other creative endeavor when you’re keeping track of a lot of history. It’s not as done in wrestling, because it’s largely the same people being in charge and the history of the company is whatever they remember, or it’s new people in charge who may choose not to remember the parts they don’t like. It is something you need when you have a lot of people working on characters and brands – the guys in New York working on an app need to know the differences between a LA Park and a La Parka if it’s going to seem AAA authentic – but it also relies on the people making those creative decisions keeping the bible updated. There was probably something like this done for the video game and for the movie.

Keeping track of the history of characters is going to be tricky, but it reads more like they just want to know why the characters work rather than go thru 1999 AAA TV results. The character count listed is interesting to me. This article, drawing on the US press release, says AAA owns 250 characters. I tried to come up with signature moves for everyone on the roster, and while I may have not done the most accurate job, the 90 active luchador count is closer to accurate, and recently inflated with all the fringe guys being added for Fusion tapings. AAA says they own more than 2.5 times as many characters as you see on every TV show. That’s amazing. It could be the math that only makes sense if they gave you the correct context – like how AAA reaches 52 million viewers might make sense if that’s all the people who have access to Televisa – but usually I just ignore that stuff because it’s just press release hype. I’m actually interested in what that context could be in this case. Do they get to 250 with old discarded 90s characters (Los Insectos!)? Are there dozens of Antonio Pena character designs sitting in an AAA filing cabinet someplace, owned by the company but never given to a luchador (like the Jack Kirby unpublished material)? That would be interesting.

Hijo del Santo announced the 04/27 TxT show will be himself, Solitario and Wagner vs La Migra, as KrisZ had a few days ago. La Migra say the Mexican promotion cheated them, and they’re in for revenge. Trio Fantasy, who were popular with kids in the early 90s, will be there for today’s kids. Pirata Morgan, Rayman, and Los Temerarios are also scheduled, as well as a tribute to Angel Blanco.